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…Warblers. At least this year. What other reaction can I have to the evil little bird snubbing me at Central Park, avoiding me at Floyd Bennett Field, and leaving me standing in the rain for two hours at Muttontown Preserve? That’s right, Muttontown Preserve. But before I get to the whole sordid story let me [...]

Today I had the full day free to bird the environs of New York City, so, of course, the winds stayed out of the south and no new migrants came in for my birding enjoyment. But Mike, my bird-blogging cohort, was free to do some birding, and, even better (no offense Mike), the American Avocet [...]

The Eurasian Collared-Dove is a (surprise!) Eurasian species that was introduced in the Bahamas, spread to Florida, and has slowly but surely expanded its range north and west across the southeastern United States. It is a still-rare visitor to New York but one was reported recently in Port Crane, a small town in New York’s [...]

The alarm went off at 3:30 AM and I woke up unsure of where I was but convinced I missed the boat. Of course I didn’t but it was a horrible time and way to awaken. I showered, brewed some coffee, and was off to Freeport for a See Life Paulagics trip on the boat [...]

When I posted my pelagic preview last week I was hoping that I would manage to see my four-hundredth bird at sea on Sunday. I didn’t anticipate birding that would result in a lifer prior to the pelagic, as Daisy had put her foot down about my doing any birding this past weekend other than [...]

It took me long enough. This weekend in New York Daisy and I spent two hours at the southern end of Staten Island in Conference House Park and Mount Loretto trying and failing to find a reported Western Kingbird. And Sunday morning I met Mike at Manhattan’s Central Park and searched for and failed to [...]

I am so sick of the East Pond of Jamaica Bay. Now don’t get me wrong, Jamaica Bay is a world-class birding destination that rarely disappoints, but how many times in one year can a birder walk out on those stinking mud flats and look at shorebirds? Fortunately, after Sunday’s trip there I don’t have [...]

Sunday morning saw me up and out of the house before 4 AM for a big trip with two of the other Big Year birders from the Albany area, Rich and Jory. Our destination? Jones Beach and Jamaica Bay, two exquisite birding destinations with which regular readers of this blog are probably altogether too familiar. [...]

When I saw the post on the New York State listserv that a Cattle Egret, and sometimes two Cattle Egrets, had been seen in Drake Park in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx I knew I had to make a stop there on my way back upstate. Not only so I could see the [...]

This Sunday I once again made moves to marvel at the multitude of shorebirds that make Jamaica Bay a must-visit for any birder looking to garner a respectable number on a New York Big Year. Though my goal of 300 birds is modest I am starting to think that mudflats are my home away from [...]

After our successful search for Sandhill Cranes and various shorebirds at Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, Will, Zack and I headed east, hoping to find the reported Whimbrel that had been hanging around the recently revealed mudflats at the drawn-down Delta Lake. All that we could remember was that it had been reported on the east [...]

The early bird gets the worm and the early birder gets the birds. Once again awakening before dawn this morning, I met Zack in the parking lot of my apartment complex and after we loaded up my car with his gear we went and got Will and headed west. Our destination? The amazing marshes of [...]

I had an unexpected opportunity to torture myself some more today when my job (you know, the thing you do between birding expeditions) required me to be in Champlain, a small town way up in the northeastern-most part of New York State. It wasn’t the visit to the town that was torturous but what I [...]

Since I decided in June to make this year as big a birding year as possible in New York State I have been putting far too much effort into finding species that, seemingly, do not want to be found. Especially the two woodpeckers, American Three-toed and Black-backed, that in New York State occur only in [...]

Since last Sunday a rare-for-North America Western Reef Heron has been alternately frustrating and rewarding birders from the Empire State and beyond as it appears and disappears from an unassuming stretch of waterfront property in the borough of Brooklyn, New York City. It was back again today and I was in the neighboring borough of [...]

After a decent night’s sleep the intrepid gang of four awakened in the dark once again, hoping to top the previous day’s birding adventure. From Cranberry Lake, just across the road from our motel, came the haunting calls of Common Loons, amplified by the damp air. The sound was enough to send shivers down my [...]

It was somewhere around the twelfth hour of birding the Adirondacks this past Saturday that it struck me: birders are insane. I had been up since 3:30 AM and had already traveled a couple of hundred miles through mountains and forests and was standing on the side of the same dirt road in the middle [...]

When I arrived at Jones Beach on Thursday morning I planned to check out the area around the Coast Guard station for early migrating shorebirds and to photograph some terns. Was I ever surprised to see what I presumed to be a female Yellow-headed Blackbird! I first saw the bird foraging in the grass just [...]

When the alarm clock went off at 3:30 AM Sunday morning I never even heard it. Daisy did though, and awakened me, and our sleep-clogged bodies got ready for a full day’s birding in the Adirondacks without the help of our still-sleeping brains. We picked Will and Danika up and headed west on the New [...]

The weekend began for me with a Friday night for the ages, if I could only remember it. Daisy, her two sisters, her brother-in-law and I went to a karaoke bar and I made the mistake of trying to keep up in terms of drinking soju, a Korean liquor. I learned that large quantities of [...]